You make me lose my breath a whole lot

March 14, 2010

It’s freezing. My arms are all goose-bumpy, and that has nothing to do with your fingertips drawing random patterns on my shoulder. I squeeze my arms around you a little tighter. Your white t-shirt bunches under my fingertips. I bite my lip. Squinch my eyes closed. Bite my lip again.

                It’s been fifteen minutes. Standing out here, wrapped in your embrace, bits and pieces of conversation surrounded by this nervous kind of buzz that’s not typical of us. This is different.

                I take a very deep breath in, and asfghjkl your smell. It’s not a cologne, but it’s just.. you. Gosh, that smell. Woah, sidetracked. I’ve just got to do this. I’ve just got to say it.

                “Iloveyou.”

All the air goes out of me as I realize… I can’t take it back. It’s out there now. It feels like an eternity, but it can’t be more than a breath before you respond.

                “I love you too.”

                “Yay,” I say and then immediately regret it.

                But you just chuckle and kiss the top of my head.

I'm not sure if romance makes up for the overall dampness of our evening

April 2, 2010

I glance up at you and tuck a damp t curl behind my ear. We came straight from swim championships, so I could play in the pit orchestra for the one song Mrs. Ramirez asked me to play in. I told you that you could go home, that you’d seen the play already (because you stuck it out last night and the night before just to keep me company), but you just smiled and said you wanted to stay.

You’d already stayed through a freezing cold swim regional championships—the same championships that not even my own parents would stay for. They left before my last relay because it had started pouring rain and besides it was just a relay, right?

Right. You’d stayed though, and kissed my cap for good luck and held my towel while I raced. And you’re staying again now.

My cue to join the pit crew comes and I grab my trumpet from the chair next to me. The song is brief, I’m just adding extra power behind the keyboard really, and then the play is over.

My mom isn’t due for another ten minutes, so we wait outside. It’s still freezing, but at least it’s stopped raining. You pull me into your embrace as the band starts a new song—something slow and swishy. Taking one of my hands, you hold it to your chest and lead me around in a slow dance.

I’m giddy with the romance of it all; I’m not sure I could’ve imagined this moment better if I tried. And I just want to kiss you like nothing else.

I raise onto my tiptoes, dismayed to find my five feet and four inches isn’t enough to reach your lips.

I sigh. “I’m not tall enough.”

I feel you chuckle. “For what?”

I count the seconds it takes for you to get it, one, two, three-

It’s wet.

Like, really wet.

Like dog slobber on my mouth wet.

I’m so confused. I settle back onto the ground, onto my feet. Of all the times I’ve imagined my first kiss, wet isn’t the first thing that came to mind.

Are kisses supposed to be wet?

Maybe they are and I’m just freaking out over something totally normal.

Maybe they’re not. Maybe the wetness was all my fault! Oh my gosh, did I slobber all over you? You’re probably so disgusted, you probably don’t even like me anymore.

I’m overthinking, I must be overthinking. Oh my gosh, I have to get out of here.

“My mom is probably here,” I say.

You sigh. “Alright. I’ll see you Monday though?”

I step away from you. “Of course.”

You reach out and lean down, one hand pulling my face towards yours, and give me a brief peck. At least I think it’s brief? I don’t have much to compare it to?

I blink and turn around and book it towards the school gates.

It was still wet.